WTF Australia?

So, walking around Australia is something like walking through a US pet store. There are parakeets, cockatoos, zebra finches, iguanas, sugar gliders.... it's kind of silly that half the things we buy as pets come from this one continent. 

All the same, the wildlife in Queensland is pretty cool, and I haven't even walked out of this one suburb! 

Yes, the one is dead, but it's the first marsupial I saw! I've started a short bird list and might start posting it here as I go along. I also saw my first fruit bat flying around last night! 

I'm pretty satisfied with all the new flora and fauna to be seen, but as the following story shows, there are down sides to being on the other side of the world!

My infatuation with all things new and different became tenuous when I realized I hadn't bought any tortilla chips at the grocery store during my first run for staple items. As many of you may know... tortilla chips are a staple for me. I never add them to a shopping list, because when I see them in a store, I automatically restock my cache. You can see how this may have worried me... tortilla chips must not have come into my line of vision while wandering the grocery store! I tried to calm my fear of the worst, but a nagging voice kept whispering... 'maybe there were no tortilla chips'. 

Next trip to the grocery store, I had my priorities set. I first come across the Mexican food section. Filed under 'Asian foods' this section was one shelf of taco kits, a single type of corn tortillas, and a small variety of 'taco sauces' and 'guacamole spices', all which look to have been marketed by Taco Bell. There are 2 pint sized (literally) bags of white corn Mission tortilla chips. A small sigh of relief. But I am confused by their very small size, and more confused that the red label Mission chips next to them are not just the familar triangle shape that the red label usually indicates, but an "extreme cheese" version. WTF?

I again try to convince myself that there must be a whole mass of normally sized and flavored tortilla chips in the regular chip aisle of the store. My shaky confidence quickly dissolved into terror, and shamefully enough almost tears when I found the "Corn chip section":

It is filled with DORITOS!!! Those are NOT tortilla chips. I am devastated. I ended up buying the 2 bags of Mission chips (I did the math, and they are 2/5 the size of a normal bag in the US), as well as 2 other equally tiny bags of a "Deli-style corn chip with sea salt" which have poppy seeds in them and do not taste like tortilla chips (seriously, WTF Australia). So in the end I have spent $8 AU ($8.50 US) on what amounts to be ~ 1.5 bags of sub-par tortilla chips.

It's going to be a long 3 months.